The Right Way to Navigate Canceled Artists: A Guide for Conscious Consumers

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Founder at Festivaltopia, HORiZONTE, trib

Besides founding Festivaltopia, Luca is the co founder of trib, an art and fashion collectiv you find on several regional events and online. Also he is part of the management board at HORiZONTE, a group travel provider in Germany.

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Right Way to Navigate Canceled Artists: A Guide for Conscious Consumers

The Growing Landscape of Canceled Artists

We’re living in an era where the line between artistry and accountability has never been more blurred. From Jonathan Majors being dropped by Disney and Marvel to the surge in “cancel culture” where public figures face ostracization on social media, the entertainment industry is witnessing unprecedented scrutiny of its stars. Between November and December 2023, Sean “Diddy” Combs was accused of sexual misconduct by four women, with numerous civil complaints filed by claimants alleging sexual abuse between 1990 and 2009. Six new people have filed lawsuits against Sean “Diddy” Combs accusing the 54-year-old media mogul of sexual assault, increasing the number of lawsuits he now faces to over 120.

The scope of these controversies extends far beyond hip-hop culture. A U.K. stage production of Neil Gaiman’s “Coraline” was canceled following allegations of sexual assault against the author, with Tortoise Media breaking the news that Gaiman had been accused of sexual assault by two women. This modern wave of accountability isn’t just affecting individual careers – it’s fundamentally changing how we consume and engage with art itself.

The Weight of Historical Precedent

The challenge of separating art from artist isn’t new – it’s just more visible now. The history of art is full of artists who were cruel, exploitative, prejudiced or predatory, with Picasso mistreating women and Renaissance painter Caravaggio being a murderer. Wagner was an anti-Semite, and Alfred Hitchcock tried to ruin Tippi Hedren’s career as an actress because she refused his sexual advances. Yet these artists’ works continue to be celebrated and studied centuries later.

What makes today different is the immediacy and permanence of digital culture. With the advance of technology and social media giving more space to artists to expose their contentious opinions, this debate has intensified, especially since their backlash happens in real time. Unlike previous generations who might have remained ignorant of an artist’s personal failings, we now have instant access to every controversy, every allegation, and every problematic statement.

The Emotional Toll of Artistic Betrayal

There’s something uniquely devastating about discovering that an artist you’ve admired has done terrible things. The emotional ties we have to art can make it feel like giving up a part of your soul, like a part of it is tarnished by the destruction of some ideal you might have about an artist you love. This emotional connection isn’t trivial – it’s central to how art functions in our lives.

Music is often a lot more personal than other art forms, as artists draw on their own personal life experiences for song lyrics, and people can resonate with songs and subsequently feel a greater emotional connection to the creator of the music. When that connection is broken by revelations of misconduct, fans can feel uncomfortable with the fact that they can relate to someone who acts in ways that alienate them.

The Philosophy Behind the Separation

The concept of separating art from artist has deep philosophical roots. Those who believe art could be separated from artists argue that art is something meaningful and needs to be embraced, while the artist needs to be condemned or punished, not as a creator of the art, but as an individual who has committed the crime. This perspective suggests that you can be a bad guy and still create good art, so the art isn’t an issue, but the artist’s actions are.

Separating art from the artist is possible when one realizes that art is more than someone’s feelings on a canvas or page, but an abstract reenactment of society – terrible people can be great artists and it doesn’t mean people should stop consuming it, but rather consume it from a critical point of view. This philosophical framework provides a potential pathway forward for those struggling with this moral dilemma.

When Separation Becomes Impossible

However, there are clear limits to this separation. The distinction between art and the artist breaks down when the intention of the artist is to support a racist or sexist ideology, as was the case with Leni Riefenstahl who used her talents as a filmmaker to celebrate Hitler’s regime. Some works are so inherently connected to their creator’s harmful worldview that consuming them becomes an endorsement of those values.

Some artists have definitely behaved in a way that makes them completely irredeemable, with Ian Watkins of Lostprophets being a classic example, and this can make their work near impossible to enjoy. There’s a difference between separating art from flawed human behavior and supporting work that actively promotes harmful ideologies or was created through exploitative means.

The Economics of Boycotting

One practical consideration in the art-from-artist debate is the economic impact of our choices. When we boycott an artist’s work, we’re not just affecting them – we’re potentially impacting everyone involved in the creative process. If we boycott Weinstein movies, for example, it is not just Weinstein we are punishing, but the viewing public and the thousands of people whose life’s work went into those productions.

This creates a complex moral calculation. Some argue that in the streaming era, your choices about which songs to stream make little moral difference to the world, especially considering that platforms like Spotify already rip off artists anyway. Yet others contend that every choice we make sends a message about what behavior we’re willing to tolerate from public figures.

The Role of Intent and Context

Context matters enormously in these situations. Whether we should object to an artist’s work depends on whether the attitudes we object to are endorsed in the film or performance – an actor portraying a rapist need not be thought to endorse rape or uncritical attitudes toward it. The key question becomes whether the work itself promotes harmful attitudes or simply depicts them.

When art made by bad actors presents their personal philosophies as acceptable – as is the case with Woody Allen’s Manhattan – we either need to be very aware of the context of the art and the artist’s transgressions, or abstain entirely. This requires a level of critical engagement that many casual consumers aren’t prepared for.

The Double Standard of Time

There’s an interesting temporal aspect to how we handle canceled artists. Much of the canceling of artists depends on the recency of their controversy – it’s much rarer to see people bringing up the misdeeds of artists like Pete Townsend or David Bowie, compared to artists canceled more recently, partly because their era was one where certain behaviors were just part of the accepted life of the rockstar.

This raises uncomfortable questions about our moral consistency. Are we more willing to forgive historical figures because their transgressions feel distant, or because we’ve already integrated their art into our cultural canon? The answer suggests that our approach to canceled artists might be more about social momentum than principled moral reasoning.

The Community Factor

Affective communities – communities of people who care about a work of art and see one another as members of a community – make the moral character of the artist particularly salient to enjoyment of the artwork, whether that’s Bloomsday, the Harry Potter ‘Wizarding World,’ or Trekkies. These communities create additional pressure around the art-from-artist debate.

When you’re part of a fan community, your individual choice to continue consuming problematic art affects not just you, but your relationship with other fans. Since J.K. Rowling’s transphobic comments, many fans of the Harry Potter universe started to boycott the author and her work, with people on TikTok making videos of burning her books as a protest. This communal aspect adds another layer of complexity to personal decision-making.

A Framework for Ethical Consumption

So what’s the right approach? The answer to the art-artist conundrum is deeply personal – there is no way to produce a collective moral standard to arrive at a conclusive distinction between art and the artist. However, this doesn’t mean we should avoid developing frameworks for making these decisions.

Consider the severity of the allegations, the artist’s response to them, and whether the work itself promotes harmful ideas. You are strong enough to find new things to love, and you can choose your own path forward – hopefully one of compassion that centers the voices and experiences of victims and promotes their healing while preventing the creation of further wrongs. This victim-centered approach provides a moral compass when navigating these difficult decisions.

The Danger of Absolute Positions

We have to resist the two extremes in this scenario – the first is to throw out artists’ work completely, while the second extreme would be to completely neglect the harmful sides of the authors’ lives. Both approaches rob us of the opportunity for nuanced engagement with complex moral questions.

Should we develop our characters so that our disapproval of an artist’s moral transgressions drowns out any aesthetic value their work might have? This strikes many as a push toward moral sainthood that isn’t a desirable ideal – even setting aside the fact that a lot of great artists are morally bad, it wouldn’t be a desirable way to go through life. The goal should be thoughtful engagement, not moral perfectionism.

Moving Forward Without Guilt

‘Separating the art from the artist’ can be a helpful phrase, especially when addressing artists from the past – we can recognize art’s impact and the lessons we can learn from it while also recognizing the artists’ messiness, without brushing the issues under the rug. This balanced approach acknowledges both the value of artistic expression and the importance of moral accountability.

The listener should not be punished or shamed for continuing to support a canceled artist, and instead be allowed to listen at will and think what they want about the person behind it – canceling is not a real thing, as the misdeeds of a band member do not delete their back catalogue, and if you take no mind in what people online have to say about your music taste, you can listen to whatever you want and not feel bad.

Conclusion: The Personal Choice

The question of how to deal with canceled artists doesn’t have a universal answer because it touches on deeply personal values about art, morality, and forgiveness. Once released into the world, someone’s work is not solely theirs anymore – art needs to be separated from its creator to be rightfully judged and critically analyzed. Yet this separation isn’t always possible or desirable, especially when the art itself perpetuates harmful ideologies.

Separating the art from the artist should be used as a tool, not as an excuse. The key is developing a thoughtful, consistent approach that considers the specific circumstances of each case while maintaining respect for both artistic expression and human dignity. Whether you choose to continue consuming problematic art or not, the important thing is that you’re making that choice consciously, with full awareness of the moral complexities involved.

What matters most isn’t finding the perfect moral solution – it’s engaging with these questions thoughtfully and compassionately. In the end, the way we handle canceled artists says as much about our values as it does about theirs. Can you live with the choice you’re making?

Luca von Burkersroda